Sketchcard 4 - Lion-O

Well, the time has come to post the fourth and final sketchcard I did for this year's Comics for Cures, the BlueLinePro/Sketch Magazine Sketchcard Event for Cancer. I picked Lion-O, not only because of nostalgia but also because I realized I had never drawn him before. And who didn't love the Thundercats?

Here are the inked lines. As before, I totally forgot to take a photo of the pencils only stage, but it didn't differ too much from this except that it was, you know, penciled and not inked. I didn't get too crazy with the drawing, so it was pretty simple and straightforward.

Then, I started coloring the card with pencils. I used the same method for all four of the cards.

The background was, like in the other cards, just a simple color.

And know here are the cards all together! You might have seen them before on deviantart, but still, it's a first for this blog, so I hope you enjoy the set.

Sketchcards are really a ton of fun to make. I'd love to go a little crazier and be a bit more bold in the next ones. Hopefully I'll get to draw many more in the future.
I'll let you know once these cards are up for auction!

Usagi Yojimbo on the Covered Blog

A while ago, I stumbled upon a cool blog called Covered. It's a blog where basically artist's take on existing comic book covers and create their own versions. The new covers are posted on the website along the original ones, and only one cover is posted per day. I had a lot of fun browsing through the site - some covers were wonderfully re-created - and it wasn't long before I felt the urge to contribute. After I knew my participation would be welcome, I started thinking about what to cover. That turned out to be easy as well - I had been reading Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, and loving it, so I immediately turned to that. Who could resist drawing a rabbit ronin? So I covered Usagi Yojimbo number 37. It's been a while since I drew the piece, and the site is receiving a lot of contributions, so my work was scheduled to show up on April 5th. And sure enough, there it was, yesterday!

That's a screenshot I took of the blog, showing Stan Sakai's original on the left, and mine on the right. You can take a better look at my version below. I hope you enjoy it, and read Usagi Yojimbo if you get the chance!

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

Happy April Fool's, everyone! Let's get that right out of the way, so you know I won't try to trick you with anything I post. Instead, I'll post some drawings, how's that?

Back on 2008, I got invited by Mike Schneider to participate on a big project he was curating. It basically involved creating an animated version of George Romero's classic, Night of the Living Dead. He was contacting several artists, on several fields, to contribute to the project, and I was one of them. I was very excited, and I quickly accepted. I love horror movies, and Night of the Living Dead is probably the most important zombie movie of all time, so working on an animated version sounded awesome. Thing is, I'm not an animator. I had never animated anything in my life, so I started out doing some illustrations, like this one:

And this one:And also this one:

I ended up doing a very big bulk of illustrations for the movie, (probably the most I've done at one time) and then Mike asked me specifically for an animated sequence. It was one of the biggest challenges I ever faced, but I ended up actually animating one tiny sequence (when Ben is tuning the radio, shortly after he arrives at the house). The movie is now making the round in several festivals and is due shortly for a DVD release. It was definitely a very interesting experience, both in illustration and in animation, and I learned a lot!

Though not designed by me (it was created by Mike) I'll leave you with one of the posters for the project, which features some of my artwork, and you can always go to the official website for more information.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Ah, the turtles. We all loved them, right? If you point me to someone born and raised in the 80s who didn't love the old Turtles cartoon, I'll give you a cookie. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever when I was a little girl, and today I look back at the cartoon with nostalgia. Sure, the Turtles are still on tv and movies, but it's just not the same. Just as I grew up, the turtles changed and I can no longer identify with the newer series. That being said, they're still a lot of fun to draw. That's why I dedicating this post to some of the most recent pieces I've done on the turtles and the villains from the show.

On December 2008, I wanted to offer a cool poster, made by me, to my boyfriend for his birthday. It didn't take long before I decided it should be something related to the Turtles (since we were both such huge fans when we were kids). This is what I came up with:

I offered it to him and, to my joy, he loved it, so I later posted it to my deviantart page. It turns out this started a challenge with my friend Oscar, where we would challenge each other to keep drawing characters from the turtles. So, in February 2009, my gallery saw the arrival of Krang, complete with bright, 80ish colors.

The following month, in March, we both drew Rocksteady, and here is mine:

I wanted him to look ridiculous, to match his somewhat dumb personality in the show, so I gave him a big upper body and tiny legs - something I would also do when Bebop's turn came around. Me and Oscar kept forgetting to draw poor Bebop, and I only got around to drawing him last March - funnily enough, almost exactly one year after I posted Rocksteady. Here's Bebop:

I hope you enjoyed this look back through my TMNT themed artwork. Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for new posts!

Sketchcard 3 - Boba Fett

And now, another post dedicated to a sketch card. This time, it was Boba Fett's turn! I had never drew Bobba Fett before, but since so many people like this character, I thought it would be a good pick for the card. After all, if you draw popular characters, there's a higher chance that people will buy them, and the whole point of this is to raise as much money as possible for charity.

Here is the inked version. As with Lobster Johnson, I forgot to take photos of the pencils, so we're jumping straight into the inks.


Next, I started laying down the colors, using colored pencils (like I did before). This photo didn't turn out great, I apologize for the weird lighting.


And here's the end result! Used a simple colored background, like I did before.

I hope you enjoy yet another post dedicated to a sketch card. There's still one more to go, so expect that one soon!

Sketchcard 2 - Lobster Johnson

One more peek at another of the sketchcards I produced to benefit the American Cancer Society. I hope it's not a boring idea and that you guys get a kick out of this instead of just seeing the finished product.
Well, this next card features Lobster Johnson, who's not an actual lobster - he's a character from the Hellboy world that I had never drawn before. I don't have as many photos of Lobster as I had of Terry Bogard, so we're jumping directly into inks. Or we can pretend I drew this with a pen, straight up, because I'm cool like that.

So here he is, looking a bit pouty. I wanted him to look "intense", but turns out he looks more pouty than anything.

Started laying down the colors. As with the previous card, I used colored pencils. I'd love to try out prisma markers sometime, but I have no idea where to get them here and I've been too lazy to hunt for them online. Also, I'm scared they'll be super expensive.

The colors are pretty much finished here. Added a simple background to make Lobster pop a little more.

Ta-da! Lobster is finished, and here he is next to Terry. It looks like he's disapproving of Terry being so smiley. Lighten up, Lobster. You'll make money for a good cause.

Hope you enjoyed this once again. If you did, I'll keep posting these!

Sketchcard 1 - Terry Bogard

This year I had the pleasure of creating a small set of 4 sketchcards for Comics for Cures, to benefit the American Cancer Society. Artists donate sketchcards for the show. The sketchcards will then be part of a gallery show, and after that they're put on eBay, and all proceeds from the auction go to the American Cancer Society. It is pretty awesome, and whenever I have the chance of helping out with my scribbles, I'm glad to jump at the opportunity. The auction was supposed to go live on April 3rd, but I was just told that the date was moved to May 22nd, so it'll still be a while before you can bid on those cards.
Anyway, I've posted the cards over at deviantart, but I promised I'd post some progress shots over here. So, in an effort to put this blog to better use, here go some shots of the first card I did, Terry Bogard:

First, here are the penciled lines. Why did I go with Terry Bogard? Well, I love the game series King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury too, where this character is from. He's not one of my favorites from either game, but I had never drawn him before so I figured I'd give it a shot. Also, I think he's a popular character and so his card will probably sell well in the auction (I hope).

Here I've moved on to inks. I kept it pretty clean and simple. The cards are relatively small (about 6x9 cm.) and I'm not really used to drawing small, so the pose isn't very original or fresh, but I tried to make up for it.

Started laying down the colors with my mighty colored pencils. Well, I say mighty but in reality I hardly ever color with colored pencils. The scanner destroys the coloring and that made me almost quit coloring pencils a long time ago. But I enjoyed the practice, and I think I might have to keep going at it. I love the organic feeling of coloring traditionally as oposed to digitally.

Ta-da, the card is done here! Just added a simple background that makes Terry pop out a little more. As you can see it's a fairly simple process, and a lot of fun. I hope this card raises a lot of money for the good cause. Stay tuned, I may do similar posts of my other cards!

Hope you enjoyed this!